Becoming the next China won’t blunt India’s 2023 slowdown 

IT’S NOT immediately obvious that the global slowdown has also arrived in India: Investments in factories, roads, and other fixed assets are just shy of 35 per cent of domestic output; they haven’t been this high in 10 years. Loan demand is growing so fast that deposits can’t keep up.

What’s driving India’s animal spirits amid a worldwide malaise? Some of it is a result of the economy reopening fully. Contact-based services like travel and hospitality came back sharply from their pandemic funk in the first half of the year, fueling optimism. The other oft-cited reason is what multinational corporations refer to as their “China+1” strategy.

Global manufacturers have taken note of the violent protests by locked-down workers at Apple Inc’s most important iPhone assembly plant in China. Their search for risk mitigation is bringing them to the second-most-populous nation, which is offering generous subsidies for making everything from semiconductors and solar panels to electric-vehicle batteries and textiles. It’s a compelling combination of push and pull.